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Message: <blockquote data-quote="paradox42" data-source="post: 5753147" data-attributes="member: 29746">You misunderstood what I was saying, I think. Let me try it a different way.Character under the effect of Tongues is called "Speaker."Speaker says something to a group of four people, call them "Listener A, Listener B, Listener C," and "Listener D."Listener A is from Rome, and is a native speaker of Latin.Listener B is from southern Italy, and is a native speaker of Etruscan.Listener C is from Athens, and is a native speaker of Greek.Listener D is from Ashurbanipal, and is a native speaker of Persian.Speaker says something in the unique "language" allowed him by the Tongues spell. He just speaks once, and thinks of the words in whatever language he likes (most likely his native one).Listener A hears Latin, as if Speaker were using Latin to talk (even though he's not). Listener B hears Etruscan, as if Speaker were using Etruscan (even though he's not). Listener C hears Greek, as if Speaker were using Greek (even though he's not). Listener D hears Persian, as if Speaker were using Persian (even though he's not).It's a really weird and subtle effect, not directly implied by the wording of the existing Tongues spell.On another note, I have a world with lots of languages too. <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> Each continent has its own Common tongue, and the Underdark has Undercommon; there are some 70-odd different languages to learn (some of which are dead languages used by civilizations that were snuffed out for one reason or another centuries ago). I also wrote in rules for special things like language families (for example, several varieties of Dwarven, but learning one gives you a bonus on Linguistics with others in the family even if you don't technically speak them) and "espionage" languages (two different languages use the same symbols for writing, allowing you to hide secret messages in one language within a "surface message" written in the other). They might rarely or never come up in play, but I like having the option of using them for a cooler campaign.</blockquote>

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